September 11

On September 11, 1883 Rochester architect James G. Cutler received a patent for his “letter-box connection.” Four years earlier, Cutler had designed the seven-story Elwood Building on Main and State streets in Rochester, NY. The question of creating an easier way for people working upper floors was on Cutler’s mind. On September 11, 1883 he received patent #284,951 for his letter-box connection apparatus. According to his patent, this connection device would “enable persons upon the different floors of a building to deliver letters and other matter to be mailed into a letter-box or other receptacle on the lower floor without the necessity of descending thereto.”

For many these days, the sight diagramed in “Fig.4” of Cutler’s patent is not the common sight it was through the many decades following the device’s first installation, in Cutler’s own designed Ellwood Building.

Cutler also designed a mailbox that would receive the mail from the chutes. The chutes and mailbox quickly became successful and in demand with architects and builders as taller and taller buildings became common sights across the country. The architect found himself quickly in a new business. He soon opened the Cutler Manufacturing Company. He soon renamed the company in honor of its star – the Cutler Mail Chute Company.

Builders still use Cutler chutes and mailboxes in multi-floor constructions. This is the front piece of a Cutler receiving mailbox that was recovered from the World Trade Center area following the infamous attack of 9/11/2001.

This is the third in a series of three posts addressing the anthrax bioterrorism attacks that took place in October 2001. Click for parts one and two.

In October 2001, the National Postal Museum began collecting objects from the Church Street Post Office in New York City, which serviced The World Trade Center. The large items we collected, including a sorting unit, were wrapped up, palletized and delivered to NPM by a fine arts handler. However, small objects, including two satchels and a mail sack, were put inside a box (shown below) and mailed to the National Postal Museum.

As these objects were en route to D.C., another tragedy occured. On October 6, 2001, two letters containing anthrax were sent through Washington, D.C.'s Brentwood mail processing center, the hub for D.C. mail activity.

On October 21, 2001 the Brentwood facility, later renamed the Curseen-Morris Mail Processing and Distribution Center after the two postal workers who lost their lives after inhaling the lethal anthrax, was closed and sealed for decontamination but not before the box containing these three mailbags had entered the facility. The package was held at the post office for several months while the building was decontaminated.

Once the box arrived at NPM, the mailbags were sent to an off-site Smithsonian facility where they went through a second decontamination process to remove debris from the initial 9/11 attacks. After decontamination the objects were bagged and sent back to NPM.

One of the mailbags as it arrived at NPM after decontamination.

Despite decontamination, the mailbags were still dirty and needed to be surface cleaned, photographed and put into boxes for storage.Recently the preservation department installed a new fume exhaust arm (also known as an elephant trunk) and exhaust fan enabling me to set out the mailbags and surface clean them using a ﻿﻿High-Effeciency Particulate Air (HEPA)Vacuum and brushes. I wore my half-mask respirator, Tyvek suit and nitrile gloves for personal protection and went to work.

I found cleaning the mailbags to be quite a fullfilling and emotional experience and I was moved when I opened up one of the satchels and found numerous rubber bands (used to bundle mail) and two pens that belonged to companies in the World Trade Center (pictured below.) The zip codes were obvious clues.

Below are before and after treatment images of the three mailbags.

Before: After:

Read more about the Postal Museum's September 11th collection in our four part series found here.

In the weeks after the September 11th attacks, curators in a number of museums began asking themselves the same question: “Should my organization attempt to collect anything related to this tragedy – and if so, what?” The National Postal Museum’s curatorial staff asked the same question. There was a postal history aspect to the events, and we debated collecting materials from the Church Street post office. That post office, located across the street from the World Trade Center, was the office that processed the Trade Center’s mail. As a museum representing America's postal history, we had a mission mandate to collect material from the site. But did the fact that we could collect mean that we should? This was a time when emotions overruled logical judgment for many.

The museum’s two staff curators stood on opposing sides of the debate. I stood (mistakenly now I believe) firmly on the side of not collecting anything from the site. There were several reasons for my reluctance, rooted in the emotional turmoil of the time. I was unable to set aside the mental image of the site as a graveyard, a place at which we had no business collecting. We held a general staff meeting to get additional input. For those who focused on the tragedy and people involved for various reasons (some knew people who had been killed or were still missing), it was unthinkable that our museum would disrupt the site only to bring back and display items from that horrible moment. For those who were able to see past the disaster and incorporate the museum's mission into their thinking, including the museum’s other curator, Jeff Brodie, it was just as clear that we needed to be at Church Street, locating and documenting this history.

A handstamp from the Church Street post office. That post office was responsible for the neighborhood 10007 ZIP code area in addition to the World Trade Center buildings. The handstamp bears the date of the attack, Sep. 11, 2001

In the end, the National Postal Museum obtained a number of items from the Church Street post office. Each item was chosen for its relevance to the day of the attack or its importance to the work of that post office in its community. A general list of items to be selected was determined by the curators prior to the trip. Items were selected to represent the time and date of the attack, and the role of the Church Street post office in its community.

Along with the sorting unit used by carrier Thornton that I discussed in the previous blog, the museum gained a selection of handstamps, collection boxes, documents, and delivery equipment such as satchels and carts.

A cart used by one of the Church Street letter carriers on the daily rounds.

While collecting at the United Air Lines flight #93 crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, curators from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History recovered this remnant of a U.S. Postal Service mail carton. It was added to the National Postal Museum’s collections.

Ten years later, I am grateful that the museum decided to bring these objects into the museum. The 9/11 history is a vast and complex one, and the National Postal Museum’s collections remind us that the World Trade Center area wasn’t just a business center, but an active neighborhood. It was a vibrant community of businesses and homes that interacted with the world through the services and employees of the Church Street post office.

This post is part four in a series on September 11th and the postal service. View the entire series here.

Mail destined for the World Trade Center (WTC) was processed by the Church Street post office located across the street. The WTC complex was so large that it encompassed two zip codes, 16,000 addresses and required ten letter carriers whose daily rounds were made within its corridors. I’d like to relate the story of one carrier, Emma Thornton, whose daily rounds took her through the upper floors of one of the twin towers.

A long-time New Yorker, Emma worked out of the Church Street post office for over 20 years. She remembered watching the towers be built, and then watched in horror as they collapsed. Her route, 24D, covered floors 77 through 110 of the north tower, which was hit by the first plane that morning. Among her patrons were people she'd gotten to know over those two decades, including staff from the Windows on the World restaurant and financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald. As she said, "Every time I think about it, tears come to my eyes. A lot of my friends didn't make it."

In this video, Emma describes her experience that day and in the weeks that followed:

Due to the severity of the damage to the Church Street building after the attack, its employees were detailed out to other buildings. Delivery and customer service employees were re-assigned to the Farley building on 33rd street. Processing staff were told to report to the nearby Morgan processing center. The ten carriers who serviced the World Trade Center complex spent the next several months sorting WTC mail into sorting units in the Farley building. They continued to work the mail for the 16,000 addresses that made up the twin towers.

In the weeks following the attack I spoke to Emma Thornton a number of times by telephone, making sure that the museum was able to record her thoughts and memories of her route. While I was working on the story from the museum, two staff members traveled to New York to select additional items for our permanent collections. Among those items were Thornton’s sorting units.

Postal Museum curator Jeff Brodie, dressed in protective hazmat gear, examines sorting units at the Church Street building prior to selecting objects for the collection.

Pigeon holes in her package sorting unit, 24D-2, have labels listing the names of the larger firms on her route. This unit simply consists of a table with a mail sorting wing hinged to its proper left side and an attached sorting case with a light fixture to illuminate the shelves. Six cardboard shelves have been added to provide slots for additional customers. The smaller unit, 24D-3, was used for letter mail.

Emma Thornton’s sorting unit.

After the units were delivered to the National Postal Museum, we invited Emma to join us at the museum. She walked through the various markings on her sorting units, letting us know everything she could about the pieces. Emma’s visit was a high point in the story for museum staff. Her enthusiasm for her job and patrons was delightful to witness and helped bring these objects to life for our staff.

Letter carrier Emma Thornton (center), reunited with her sorting unit and looking it over with curator Nancy Pope (left) and Linda Edquist, Head of Preservation.

This post is part three in a series on September 11th and the postal service. View the entire series here.

The World Trade Center (WTC) was large enough to contain its own ZIP code, 10047. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, that code and another, also covering WTC buildings, 10048, were withdrawn from use out of respect.

Among the items retrieved from the Church Street post office following the attacks was this “Unknown, Return to Sender” handstamp with the ZIP code 10048.

Across the street from the WTC, the Church Street post office was one of four New York post offices closed after the attack. Unlike the others, which were able to reopen within the next week , the Church Street office sustained significant damage and was closed for repairs for three years. Church Street was also the home office for a number of postal inspectors, postal police officers and support staff as well as for employees of the U.S. Postal Service’s New York City crime lab. That morning, after the building was evacuated by 10am, U.S. Postal inspectors moved into the streets, offering assistance to civilians and local police officers injured in the attack and helping evacuate the area. Shortly after that Tuesday Inspectors, aided by the National Guard and local police, retrieved the mail still held in the Church Street post office. The mail was driven to the Farley Post Office building on 33rd street, just four miles north.

Mail recovered from the Church Street post office was moved out under guard.

The Church Street post office served more than just the World Trade Center buildings. Although the post office was closed after the attack, mail continued to arrive. Workers had to process mail for the surrounding neighborhood as well as for buildings that were no longer standing. By September 12 Church Street employees had been detailed to other buildings. Delivery and customer service employees were re-assigned to the Farley building. Processing staff were told to report to the Morgan processing center just three blocks away. Two days later, the Church street employees had set up a functioning version of their old office on the ground floor of the Farley building. Clerks dusted off old surplus metal mailboxes and used them as stand-ins for the almost 4,000 post office boxes that sat remarkably undamaged, but inaccessible, at Church Street.

As mail continued to arrive, the ten carriers whose daily rounds had been the corridors of the World Trade Center complex continued to process mail for the approximately 16,000 addresses of the twin towers. Carriers spoke of the steady depression of sorting mail for those who would never retrieve it, of those on their routes in the building who did not survive.

Letter carrier mail cart retrieved from Church Street post office. This cart was used to deliver mail to recipients in the 10047 ZIP code area.

After the attack, those whose mail would have been delivered out of the Church Street post office had to travel to the Farley Building for their mail. The first two weeks, patrons stood in long lines, designated by ZIP codes, set up outside the Farley building to get their mail. The block-long lines finally eased as smaller post offices reopened and carriers began to reach more of the formerly cordoned-off areas.

Over 80,000 delivery points (an address to which mail is delivered) were initially affected when delivery service was suspended below 14th street in Manhattan for days following the attack. Thirty thousand delivery points remained affected even after most of the post offices reopened. Carriers who were able to return to their old routes had trouble reaching some homes as the police and National Guard moved barricades and switched street closings over the next few months. Each morning carriers set out on their daily rounds, not knowing which path they would be able to follow to deliver the mail.

Mail addressed to the World Trade Center arrived every day for months following the attacks. Each piece was sorted by the now post office-bound clerks. When the pigeon-hole containers filled up, clerks moved the missives to overflowing crates marked by addressee. Most of the WTC mail sat unclaimed through October. Finally, company representatives began to claim their mail. After three months of holding the WTC mail, the postal service began to return unclaimed mail to the senders.

The Church Street post office re-opened on August 2, 2004.

This post is part two in a series on September 11th and the postal service. View the entire series here.

Among the most somber objects in the museum’s collection are a collection of artifacts retrieved from New York City’s Church Street Station post office following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. This is the first in a series of four blogs that will reflect on the postal history of that terrible day 10 years ago. Today, the series begins with a simple chronology of that story. It will continue with a look at the days and weeks following 9/11, and discussions over collecting objects from the tragedy.

The Church Street postal station, located at the corner of Church and Vesey, faced World Trade Center building 7 to the west and buildings 5 and 6 of the complex to the south-southwest. Building 7 collapsed the afternoon of September 11. Buildings 5 and 6 sustained critical damage and were demolished. The Church Street Post Office sustained damage from the debris of the fallen buildings and the force of the explosion but remained structurally intact.

Map showing the position of the U.S. Post Office at Church Street relative to the World Trade Center buildings.

This photograph, taken days after the attack, shows postal workers and inspectors moving the mail out of the Church Street building.The World Trade Center site is in the background, the Church Street building is on the right.

The morning of the attack, the employees of the Church Street station were busy at work inside the building. Window clerks were serving a steady stream of customers, as the register report from one window shows - recording transactions up to 8:47:22 a.m.

Registry receipt from the Church Street post office showing the last transaction conducted that day, at 8:47a.m.

The carriers were still preparing their mail for delivery when the airplane struck the first tower. No one in the Church Street building was hurt, as the building had been successfully evacuated by the time the south tower fell.